Based in San Francisco, the company was founded in 1998 with seed investors and launched its first product, an online file storage service in August 1999.

[2] The idea originated from an early company Jeff Bonforte co-founded in 1996 called ShellServer.net, which provided 10 MB of space for IRC users.

[3] Bonforte compiled the founding team, which included Chris Lindland, Patrick Fenton, Tim Craycroft, Rich MacAlmon, John Reddig and Lou Perrelli (the last three were also the company's first angel investors).

Certain assets (including the idrive.com domain name) were acquired by Pro Softnet Corp which also offered online storage services.

At its height, i-drive hosted over 10 million registered users, employed 110 people, and held partnerships with MP3.com, ZDnet.com, and 40 major universities.